Southampton 1-1 Arsenal: Match recap
In today’s early kick-off, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal came from behind to draw 1-1 with the Saints, who took the lead early on.
Charlie Austin grabbed his fourth game in three starts for Southampton to give Mauricio Pellegrino’s side the lead early on. A smart pass from Dusan Tadic sent the English forward clean through, with him producing a smart lobbed finish.
The 28-year-old continued to be dangerous and had another chance in the game’s early stages.
Alexandre Lacazette also fluffed his lines for the Gunners in the first 45 minutes as a low driven ball was blasted over the bar by the striker, yet the Frenchman was in the 18- yard box.
Southampton held their nerve throughout the first half when they weren’t trying to create chances and they had to start the second half in exactly the same manor.
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Despite seeing most of the ball, Southampton had the two best chances of the game. Oriol Romeu was first, seeing a spectacular long-range effort rattle off of the cross bar and then Ryan Bertrand dragged his shot wide after being played in one-on-one.
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Unfortunately, Saints’ brilliant performance of shutting out Arsenal meant little as substitute Olivier Giroud nodded Alexis Sanchez’s cross past Forster, who had a good game, to earn the visitors a point.
A draw was arguably a fair result with the amount of possession that Arsenal had but it was Southampton who created the best chances and it would’ve been a completely different game if Austin had scored his second or Romeu and Bertrand had found the back of the net.
Overall it was a pleasing performance and a win over former boss Claude Puel’s Leicester at St. Mary’s on Wednesday would really help with more tricky games coming up over the festive period. It will be very tough however against the Foxes and even tougher against Chelsea on Saturday; finishing the week with four/five points would not be a bad week at all with those fixtures!